If one-man wrecking ball Nigel Farage wins in Clacton he’ll break the political tedium
IN May 1381, the furious villagers of Fobbing, Essex, started the Peasants’ Revolt by marching to London in a protest over poll tax.
Now, 643 years later, might the residents of its cohort of Clacton be about to deliver an equally stark message to Parliament by voting in Nigel Farage as their next MP?
For years, this professional disrupter has been throwing bottles at mainstream politicians from the back of the room and, fresh from a successful stint in the TV jungle, the prospect of him lobbing political grenades from inside the House of Commons is a tempting one. I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me In There.
Whatever your party persuasion, politics has just got interesting again. He even got splattered with milkshake yesterday.
With the nation sedated into a virtual coma by the “blah blah blah” droning of the two mainstream parties, Farage is a one-man defibrillator who will deliver a much-needed high-energy shock to political debate over the next month.
He fired the first salvo on Monday with his Trump-like promise to “make Britain great again” — a deliberate dog whistle to the disaffected millions who feel abandoned by the Tories and Labour.
The question is: Will Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer rise to the challenge?
For as it stands, we have a man whose party has been in power for 14 years, and done little to resonate with voters, frittering away an 80-plus majority gained by Boris Johnson in 2019.
And a man whose party has had 14 years to come up with some humdinger policies he either doesn’t have or has yet to fully disclose.
As I wrote in April: “Sir Keir resembles a marathon runner who’s been tasked with carrying a Ming vase across the finish line and thinks one small jolt could shatter it.”
As for the third feasible contender — Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey — he’s seemingly too busy indulging in ridiculous It’s A Knockout- style photo stunts to be taken seriously by anyone other than his party faithful.
So every last one of them deserves the proverbial kick up the bum that Farage will deliver with practised aplomb.
Thorn in the side
Will his Reform party win any seats beyond the strong possibility of Clacton, which gave Farage’s previous party Ukip its one seat in the 2015 election?
Doubt it. Because, despite then garnering nearly four million votes, the first-past- the-post electoral system meant it ended up with just one MP — Douglas Carswell, who stepped down in 2017 and now works in the States.
So it remains that Reform is only a threat to the main parties because of the votes it could potentially divert from their final tally.
But if the one-man wrecking ball that is Nigel Farage wins a seat in the Commons, he’ll be a highly entertaining thorn in the victor’s side for the next four years.
So come on Clacton. Your country needs you to alleviate the political tedium.
GIVES US ALL FAITH
HOLLYWOOD movies and Instasham frequently feed us the myth that women’s bodies snap back in to shape after childbirth and their sex life rapidly resumes unchanged.
So a mighty “hoorah” to singer Paloma Faith for telling her truth.
“Nothing for me has been as painful as the first time I had sex postpartum,” says the 42-year-old, who has two young daughters with former partner Leyman Lahcine.
“I resigned myself to living a life of painful sex for the rest of my days. It was not enjoyable or fun or pretty. I felt s**t.”
This is the experience of so many women and to hear a celebrity use her platform to break a taboo and talk about it is commendable.
Now single, she also reveals she was once terrified of feeling “loneliness” if not part of a couple, but has now learned to relish silences and “enjoy my own company”.
Hear, hear. Loneliness and solitude are often confused as one and the same thing, but they’re not.
Loneliness is an uncomfortable feeling of disconnection from others, while solitude is a chosen state of bliss.
As Albert Einstein once said: “I lived in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”
OH WOE IS JOEY
REALITY TV stalwart Joey Essex is the first “celebrity bombshell” to be dropped on the new series of Love Island.
The 33-year-old Essex lad says he’s looking for the love of his life, and adds: “I just want someone to like me for me and not from what they see on TV.”
In which case, may I humbly suggest that, rather than look for it among a group of natural show-offs happy to be filmed 24/7, he moves abroad where no one has a clue who he is?
But, then of course, without his “celebrity” status and the commercial endorsements it brings, he might have to get a proper job.
SPIDER-MAN star Tom Holland’s appearance as Romeo in London’s West End is causing post-show chaos at the stage door, where hundreds of fans wait each night for a mere glimpse of their hero.
Now theatre bosses have asked him to leave within ten minutes of the final curtain, to disperse the crowd, as quickly as possible.
“Tom is a pro and was more than happy to oblige,” says a source.
I’ll bet. Like most Victorian theatres, the Duke of York’s will have teensy-weensy dressing rooms, dodgy plumbing and dark, perilously narrow staircases backstage.
So, rapidly escaping to the far more luxurious confines of home is no hardship.
A MALE contraceptive gel could soon be available that suppresses sperm production.
Well done to everyone involved in the research.
But the problem still remains . . . will women ever trust men enough to rub it in effectively?
Why the game of hide and peek, Kate?
KATE MOSS and a mystery man reportedly “parted like the Red Sea” after spotting photographers as they left the theatre together.
She “didn’t seem keen to be seen with him in public”, according to an onlooker.
Hmmm. She went to see Cara Delevingne in Cabaret – one of the hottest shows in town – while wearing just her pants and a see-through skirt.
Call me old-fashioned, but is this what passes as “incognito” these days?
NO BIG SONG N DANCE
PR guru Alan Edwards’s memoir I Was There gives a fascinating insight into the world of mega celebs such as David Bowie and the Rolling Stones.
Alan says the Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were both old hands at the showbiz game but drummer Charlie Watts “wasn’t the slightest bit interested in publicity” and “seemed to be in a world of his own”.
It’s a similar story with Queen guitarist John Deacon, who bowed out of the band in 1997 and now lives a quiet life with his family in South London.
In 2021, drummer Roger Taylor said: “I guess he just sits there counting his money.”
In other words, perhaps Charlie (RIP) and John were/are the smartest in achieving the rock-star/normal geezer balance that keeps you sane.
All while still enjoying a hefty slice of the royalties being generated by the PR toils of the rest.
TOKYO IS WAY TO GO
NEW research shows that if you lose a precious item like, say, a wallet, in Japan the chances of someone handing it in are between 80 and 90 per cent.
Last year, a record 30million items were handed in to police and a record £114million in cash.
Part of the reasoning is put down to a culture of honesty and responsibility drilled in from a young age.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, watch dealer Oliver White took his own life after being the victim of a violent attack in the shop he worked in. The poor lad feared he might be held responsible for the £2.8million haul.
And a visiting Chinese businessman who was tackled to the ground by two armed robbers for his expensive watch was in court last week to see one of them sentenced to 40 months.
He said: “If this happened in China he would have been jailed for more than ten years.”
Sigh. What has become of us?